Greg Pattridge hosts Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) on his Always in the Middle website each week. Check it out for more great kidlit! This is yet another book that claimed 2016 Newberry honors. (Can you tell I’m catching up?) I loved it and listened to the entire 8 hours in one gulp! It’s all the things I […]
Pennyroyal Academy, by M.A. Larson, 2014
Greg Pattridge hosts Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) on his Always in the Middle website each week. Check it out for more great kidlit! “The girl,” raised by a family of dragons, flees the forest with no name and no past. She knows only that she must find Pennyroyal Academy, where the bold and courageous train to […]
Roller Girl, Veronica Jamieson, 2015
Greg Pattridge hosts Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) on his Always in the Middle website each week. Check it out for more great kidlit! I first heard of this book when I looked up what year Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan, was written and learned that both books won 2016 Newberry Honors. So I grabbed the audiobook without […]
Echo, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, 2015
Greg Pattridge hosts Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) on his Always in the Middle website each week. Check it out for more great kidlit! I like Pam Muñoz Ryan’s books, and there’s a reason Echo claimed Newbery honors in 2016. Ryan is often lauded for her multicultural stories, but that’s not why I like them. I like them because […]
The Golden Goblet, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Book Review
Greg Pattridge hosts Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) on his Always in the Middle website each week. Check it out for more great kidlit! Published in 1961 and receiving Newbery honors the next year, The Golden Goblet still rates high on any reading list decades later. Within, young Ranofer wants nothing more than to become a goldsmith in […]
The Beast of Talesend: After Beauty and the Beast (Beaumont and Beasley, 1), by Kyle Robert Shultz, 2017
Greg Pattridge hosts Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) on his Always in the Middle website each week. Check it out for more great kidlit! This is the first time I’ve participated in MMGM in a few years, and I picked a great book for my return. The premise grabbed me right away. I’ll post a […]
King of Malorn, by Annie Douglass Lima
A couple weeks ago, I promised you three reviews over the next three weeks. Well, uh, I switched web hosts and can’t seem to figure out the new scheduler. Last week’s post is still sitting in my draft folder. Sigh. I’ll try again. In the meantime, I’ll publish this week’s manually. I’ve highlighted Annie Douglass […]
Joss the Seven (Guild of Seven, 1), by J. Philip Horne, 2016
Here is an example of self-publishing at its finest. J. Philip Horne has a natural ability to craft a story, his prose flows smooth as fresh cream, and he’s taken great care with the editing process. That’s a superb beginning. Kudos, Mr. Horne!! So…how about the story? Joss the Seven opens on Joss’s last day […]
Princess Academy, Shannon Hale, 2005
At the end of January, my husband and I decided our kids were old enough to take care of themselves for a week (the oldest is in college, the youngest in middle school), and we hit the Colorado slopes for the first time in two decades. It was a fantastic trip. We traveled […]
The Nameless Soldier
Once upon a time I posted many, many book reviews on here. I’ve gotten away from that due to writing time constraints, but there are a few middle grade series I do like to keep on top of. I’ve got one I’d like to highlight for you today. Perhaps five or six years ago, one […]